Pathway to Japanese Literature

I left the hospital with the exhilaration of a child departing on a school excursion. There was a patient in my care whose appendicitis had developed into peritonitis; having undergone surgery a month prior and still unable to walk properly, I too had lived this hospital life for a month. In Tokyo, under what was being called the "6/1 self-restraint," restaurants had closed their doors while operating through back channels—and as for how this policy’s effects might be judged, did they not amount to misgovernance? Reporters came asking such questions. In other words, I had been cast as the poster child for victims of the 6/1 self-restraint at Nonpei—but having lived a month in hospital isolation from Tokyo’s realities, I’d never so much as glimpsed the shadow markets, let alone navigated their back channels.

The patient's chest had newly worsened, and fluid began accumulating in his abdomen; because the hospital staff threw up their hands—because he'd become unmanageable—they said it would be better to transfer him to an internal medicine specialist. Since the ward neighbored a factory where screeches of metal-cutting scattered sparks in swirling vortices, I couldn't work either. This was my first outing in a full month; though I had gone out two or three times before, those were for securing funds, fetching a renowned Tokyo physician, or procuring food for the patient—this marked the first time I’d left purely for myself. I had hung bamboo-leaf-wrapped rice balls from my person like a child on a school excursion. I was happy.

The Meguro-Kamata Line had caused an accident and was operating on single-track turnback. They disembarked passengers at Tama River Park Front and made everyone transfer to the Shibuya-bound train. Because they crammed two trains’ worth of rush-hour chaos into one, every seat became standing room; even those clinging to luggage racks were shoved inward wave after wave until my feet floated mid-air—wedged upward without falling—and clinging to my rice balls by lifting them overhead proved my undoing: losing the arm that guarded my heart, all passengers’ pressure now bore directly upon it, yet I couldn’t lower my raised arm. In my critical daze—muttering about this pitiful end where my heart got crushed instead of rice balls—I reached Shibuya. I remained unable to walk for some time; when pushed out, I leaned against the platform’s iron pillar and had to wait for my consciousness to recover.

Arriving at Monami in Higashi-Nakano at 9:30, Tsukada Hachidan was present, but Kimura Meijin had yet to arrive, and even the Tōnichi reporters remained unseen. After lying down on the parlor sofa, calling for water, taking Kyūshin heart medicine, swallowing Metaboline, and downing Hiropon—when I’d finally regained some semblance of composure—Kurashima Takejiro came in with a “Well, it’s been a while.” When the Meijin match reached three to two and Kimura Meijin was driven into a corner, I had resolved that I must witness the next game. I know nothing of shogi, but there must be psychological warfare at play—here was the strongest player, a Meijin undefeated for ten years, now driven into a corner. Some intricate interplay of minds must surely be waging its covert battle beneath the surface of this match. I wanted to see that. Being a born rubbernecker, I was profoundly drawn to this match for the Meijin title—the most brutal sport imaginable—though I felt ashamed before the two men locked in mortal combat; yet having long resolved to offer my own existence as humanity’s plaything, I did not fear becoming a mere spectator to this life-and-death struggle.

Having been preoccupied with the patient’s care and forgotten about the seventh match, I was delighted when this game ended in perpetual check; the very next day, I promptly applied to the Mainichi Shimbun to observe the following contest. When I received permission, I was as happy as a child.

★ A person as utterly bored as I was could no longer bear to watch baseball or sumo—even pennant races proved too tedious. Things like women exposing their navels or revues bordering on nudity—I never once felt inclined to see them. Since the war ended, apart from that single time I went to see an American newsreel (the atomic bomb), I hadn’t watched any films, plays, revues, baseball, or sumo. Because I didn’t want to see them. When I think back, the air raids were an extravagant spectacle. Because in that hellish sky I gazed up at, my very life had been wagered. Playing with life might just be the greatest game there is. There was no ulterior motive—no scheme to profit by staking one’s life.

The work of literature—or any artistic endeavor—is ultimately such a realm devoid of common sense; one might say it’s a world inhabited by those enthralled to its call. All artistic disciplines are like this—the domain of those who write themselves to death, sing themselves to death, dance themselves to death, talk themselves to death; those who’ve bared their very foundations and sit cross-legged upon their destiny.

To claim my art isn't some cheap spectacle, that I need neither fame nor money—this pure-and-sacred nonsense—such petty posturing is beneath contempt. Let others judge me however they will—my roots remain utterly detached from such concerns. I'll gladly become their plaything, endure head-smacks and mockery, accept being branded an erotic writer if need be. A solo act: dance possessed then bid farewell—this alone constitutes the life principle of a true artist. Self-indulgent and willful—doing solely for myself what I want done.

The shogi Meijin match was my plaything.

What I particularly liked was that the ten-year undefeated Meijin was being driven into a corner. Some pretentious souls claimed Kimura Meijin wasn’t truly exceptional—that he was merely riding a lucky streak—but though I knew nothing of shogi, the fact remained: across this past decade, he had scarcely lost not only Meijin matches but any decisive contest worth the name. Such consistency could not be sustained by mere momentum. In other artistic disciplines, where debates raged over who between this or that practitioner deserved to be called master, shogi and go differed in having definitive matches—and given that the match records they produced demonstrated overwhelming superiority, Kimura Meijin must indeed have been formidable.

Because the stronger player was indeed losing and being driven into a corner, I liked it.

I had always liked Kimura Meijin. It was favoritism, if you will. Because I believed Kimura Meijin to be a man who personified fighting spirit—a "possessed one" who would devote his entire being to matches where he thrashed across the board in his quest for victory. The Meijin preceding Kimura was called Sekine Meijin; though weak at shogi, his play possessed elegance, and he was praised for having what they called a Meijin's dignified bearing. The absurd notion that someone could maintain a Meijin's dignified bearing despite being weak should not exist. One becomes Meijin through strength alone—there is no other way.

Even in literature, they regard works like Mr. Shusei's epitome as possessing a style of austere simplicity. They are neither amusing nor contain anything that truly moves the heart. Yet they proclaim this very plainness to be divine work—since it isn’t amusing, they declare it free from vulgarity, elegant, and great literature. They spout dreamlike nonsense and never question it—which makes the whole affair utterly absurd. However, since literature lacks definitive contests, no matter what I say it becomes a futile debate—but even in something like shogi where outcomes are clear, phrases like "a Meijin’s dignified bearing despite weakness" (feeble wordplay that no one questions) still hold sway.

The strength or weakness in shogi hinges on the "technique" of winning. Similarly with swordsmanship, the technique to defeat one’s opponent is paramount; stylistic considerations are irrelevant. Military strategies and swordsmanship were born of turbulent eras—inevitable techniques forged when victory meant survival and defeat meant annihilation—but when peace prevailed, they came to extol sleight-of-hand tricks like "winning without combat" as superior martial wisdom.

In old sword matches, since they were life-and-death struggles, one’s very life was at stake. Thus, in swordsmanship and warfare, winning without fighting was undeniably the most practical approach—but this wasn’t in some acrobatic sense of trickery. Rather, because one truly possessed the capability (if they fought, they would win) and this was unequivocally clear, they could win without fighting; even if they did fight, they’d still prevail—it was simply a matter of avoiding unnecessary losses.

In Japan, however, when those without real strength win without fighting—premised on such an impossibility—military strategies and swordsmanship became mere toys for the vulgar masses masquerading as truth; and once this came to be accepted as a national character-building belief, it inevitably led to today’s great defeat and ruin.

Oda Nobunaga was a master of military strategy, Japan’s foremost authority. Takeda Shingen had been the first to obtain Tanegashima firearms, but upon observing that matchlock guns required time to reload between shots, he concluded they were ineffective as weapons—since enemies could charge during this interval—and focused instead on creating shields to block the initial volley. His plan was to withstand the first shot with these shields, then close in for attack before the second could be fired, prioritizing defensive innovation over firearm adoption.

However, Nobunaga invented a method to eliminate reloading time: he organized his arquebusiers into three rows—the first row would fire, then the second, then the third—and by the time the third row finished firing, the first row had completed preparing their second volley. However, if enemies who had been missed charged in, the arquebusiers would be powerless in close combat; thus, by employing an innovative tactic—digging trenches and erecting bamboo palisades before the arquebusiers so that even if a few enemies slipped through during their confused approach they could be shot down—he annihilated the Takeda clan.

To speak of how absurd Japanese military strategies were—the Kōshū-ryū, the Kusunoki-ryū—all amounted to Mutekatsu-ryū: tactics of winning without combat despite lacking real strength, or prevailing through deception. Ultimately, whether one studied Shingen’s methods, Kusunoki’s tactics, or Nobunaga’s strategies—merely imitating others’ techniques would inevitably end in failure. What mattered was Nobunaga’s fundamental approach: maintaining substantive superiority through true capability while remaining perpetually innovative. The Japanese had forgotten this grand undertaking of originality; obsessively devoting themselves to perfecting technical flourishes within prescribed frameworks, they enshrined these efforts as “art,” “technique,” or “divine work”—compiling secret traditions and expounding esoteric doctrines until time itself left them behind.

Over sixty years after Nobunaga’s death, when the Shimabara Rebellion erupted, the rebel peasant army of Shimabara possessed matchlock guns and had intuitively adopted Nobunaga’s tactics to fight—whereas the shogunate forces, adhering to the Kōshū-ryū or some other school, charged forward brandishing their swords, leaving piles of corpses; until the peasant army exhausted their ammunition, it was no contest at all. Moreover, they remained oblivious to their own folly—denouncing Matsudaira Izu, who waited for the enemy’s ammunition to deplete, as a coward, while hailing Itakura Iga-no-kami, who led a reckless charge into gunfire only to be annihilated along with his men, as a hero. This was the military strategy of the Tokugawa period and the very nature of the Japanese national character.

Miyamoto Musashi was a demon of competition. He employed every tactic to win—deliberately arriving late to provoke his opponent, sometimes preemptively striking first, and when he saw Kishiryū throw his sword sheath, he shouted, "Kishiryū has lost!" to enrage him. Not only was he meticulous in the technical minutiae of swordsmanship, but he would also improvise with whatever was at hand, devote his entire soul, and become nothing but a relentless demon for victory. However, in his later years, Musashi wrote *The Book of Five Rings*, expounding not the technique of the sword but the Way and enlightenment—he had succumbed to defeat by the era of peace. Swordsmanship is not a means to attain enlightenment. It is a technique for winning through the sword, and as a means to attain enlightenment, there exist proper disciplines like Zen meditation and contemplation.

I had thought Kimura Meijin was a man akin to Miyamoto Musashi in his prime. Some time ago, when he commented on Futabayama—saying that in shogi, if you lose positional advantage in the opening you’ll be overwhelmed until the end, and that controlling the opening position itself constitutes the very skill befitting a Meijin—I was struck by his implication: “Just because one is a yokozuna, should they really rise at their opponent’s call?” The rumors circulating through back alleys spoke of Kimura Meijin’s ferocity—how he resembled a demon of competition. During another Meijin match against Kanda Hachidan, when Kanda arrived fifteen minutes late and they sat facing each other to begin play, he reportedly glared at the recorder and declared, “Deduct those fifteen minutes from Kanda Hachidan’s allotted time.” Choleric Kanda Hachidan—his guts must have been boiling—truly embodied a demon of competition; that’s what matches demand. A harmonious atmosphere of cheerful camaraderie was fundamentally impossible. Because for professional shogi players, this is no game. A vocation demanding their very lives—one that possesses them utterly.

Mr. Kurashima came over to where I was sprawled out in Monami’s reception room and said, “You know—this isn’t just about the Meijin title. There’s the matter of livelihood. Losing the title means a drop in income—scaling back a once-lavish lifestyle is painful, after all. Every last one of those veteran literary masters sympathizes with Kimura Meijin on this point.” I had also heard this from Mr. K of the Asahi Shimbun. Kimura Meijin had reportedly said, “I’m desperate because my family’s livelihood depends on this,” but unwittingly, I had failed to consider that far. I felt strangely heartrended. Money truly is such a heartrending thing. Not only veteran masters but even a greenhorn like myself should have no business feeling such excessive sympathy for Kimura Meijin on that point.

Since my heart had nearly been crushed to begin with, the fact that this Meijin match turned out to be such a trivial affair left me feeling deeply uneasy.

However, upon reflection, a match should inherently be such a thing—since it is a lifelong art and vocation where survival itself is staked—and thus, it was only natural to that extent. The life-and-death struggles of Musashi in years past—that stance where he risked his very life—is, in other words, competition in its true essence and art in its primal form.

“But you,”

“But you,” said Kurashima-kun.

“What you’re aiming at…” “This one’s off-target.” “The Meijin’s already become an adult, you see.” “The demon of competition belongs to the past.” “Now he’s a politician—a man of flawless character, the Taiseikai party leader.”

★

It was exactly as Kurashima-kun had said. The psychological struggle—the human clash of fighting spirits—was entirely absent from this match. It was merely a grievous match, a contest conducted in utter silence.

Since the match was about to begin, we were guided by Kurashima-kun through to the Japanese-style room where the match was held, greeted Meijin and Tsukada Hachidan, and took our seats. Tatsumi Ryutaro, Shimada Shogo, and Sayo Fukuko—the three individuals currently performing a play modeled after Sakata Hachidan—came to observe and then took their seats.

"Well then, it's about time." said Kimura Meijin. The match began with the aimless air of a first-grade elementary school footrace’s start. 10:02.

Tsukada Hachidan, playing first, spent fourteen minutes deliberating his opening move. In the middle of this, he stood up to go to the restroom. Kimura Meijin turned to us and said, "Since you’re in Western clothes and this will be lengthy, please make yourselves comfortable." Tsukada Hachidan moved his pawn to 7-6 (14 minutes). Kimura Meijin responded by advancing his pawn to 3-4 (3 minutes). Without pause, Tsukada pushed his pawn to 5-6. Kimura deliberated for seven minutes before moving his pawn to 5-4, then immediately continued with 2-5 pawn, 5-5 pawn, 2-4 pawn; same pawn taken, same rook moved, and 3-2 gold.

I had occasionally watched major go matches, but instances of moves being made "without a moment’s pause" were practically nonexistent there. While Go joseki are endlessly variable and multifaceted, shogi’s established strategies appear absolute up to a certain point. Yet even as it reached the endgame, there were moments when four or five moves were exchanged without a breath between them. In Go, even when continuing a clearly decided attack, players would deliberate for forty or fifty seconds. But here, as the match reached its decisive phase where the Meijin title hung in the balance, the pieces slid sideways and forward without pause—swoosh-swoosh—propelled by a single finger’s pressure. I felt an uncanny sensation. This was because I had been made to feel something profoundly fateful—not that the Meijin was moving the pieces, but that they were advancing through their own inexorable destiny. The Meijin’s strength could do nothing to alter that fate.

And Kimura Meijin was falling from his Meijin title... By then, I found it painful to look at his face. The Meijin could now barely manage to touch a piece with a single finger—it was the pieces themselves that slid sideways and forward with a swishing sound. There’s just no helping it—the Meijin’s face seemed to say as his entire body lost all strength.

That must have been around one or two o'clock in the dead of night. Tsukada Hachidan deliberated for six minutes before moving his rook to 3-4 and taking the pawn.

At that moment, Kimura Meijin bid farewell to both shogi players—Tatsumi, Shimada—along with Ms. Sayo—and stood up. He took his eyes off the board during his turn as Meijin looked around him before rising fully upright. Having risen, he trailed after their departing figures. Returning, "It's hard..." "I'm staying at my physician's house—we're quite close."

“Who?” said Tsukada Hachidan.

“Ms. Sayo.” After thinking for ten minutes, Meijin moved his rook to 5-2. Kimura Meijin had requested an autograph board from Sayo Fukuko. He was saying that since the schoolgirl daughter was a Sayo fan and wanted one—she’d surely be pleased. Tsukada Hachidan asked the Mainichi reporter for an autograph board, adding, “And one for me too.” Tsukada Hachidan deliberated for fifty-four minutes before moving his rook to 2-4. At the very moment he moved his piece, he smiled wryly, “I’ve played a terrible game of shogi.” “I was defeated in thirty-eight moves or something like that.” Tsukada Hachidan muttered. The meaning of this was unclear to me.

The Meijin’s great deliberation began from that moment, and soon it was noon—time for a recess.

When both players left first, the recorder Kyosu 5-dan turned to me, “This move is from the Yomiuri match or something where Tsukada Hachidan was defeated by the Meijin in thirty-eight moves.” he moved the pieces on the board and explained to me. Following Tsukada Hachidan’s rook move to 2-4, 5-6 pawn, same pawn; 8-8 bishop promotes, same silver; 3-3 bishop; 2-1 rook promotes; 8-8 bishop promotes; 7-7 bishop; 8-9 horse; 1-1 bishop promotes; 5-7 knight; 5-8 left gold; 5-6 rook; 4-8 gold advances; 7-9 horse; 5-7 gold immediately; same horse; 4-9 king; 5-8 gold; same gold; same horse; 3-8 king; 2-6 pawn; 2-7 pawn; up to 4-8 silver—38 moves,

Up until this point, things had been truly leisurely. From this point on, both players would cease speaking entirely. The three theater observers’ visit here was utterly meaningless; they should have come to observe late at night, after the play had ended.

★

Lunch ended, and at 12:50, the match resumed. Kimura Meijin stood up to spit phlegm and shuffled back to stare at the board, but when the recorder returned from the restroom, he suddenly lifted his head with hollow-eyed astonishment, then turned toward the garden and released a cavernous "Ah... ah... AH" yawn. He resettled himself and bent over the board. At that moment, Tsukada Hachidan addressed the recorder,

“On the opening day of a play, do they always perform so much?” he asked. They perform so much on opening day—the recorder, not understanding the point, was at a loss for a reply when— “If you go on opening day, it’s advantageous,” he muttered. “Normally it takes about three hours. You’ll be back in a net two and a half hours.” Indeed, opening days did take a long time. Because they took so long, most people disliked attending opening-day performances, but Tsukada Hachidan might have been impervious to boredom. He wore an expression suggesting he’d never concerned himself with others holding diametrically opposed views. And after that, he fell completely silent. From then until late night when the match concluded, they did not speak another word.

Doi Hachidan appeared limping along while fastening his M-button and announced in a booming voice, “I’ve just come from observing a game of Go—quite fascinating indeed,” then closed the sliding door to the adjacent room. In the adjacent room was the Mainichi reporter. Even with the sliding door closed, he was keeping up an absurdly loud, shrill chatter with the reporter, rendering it utterly pointless. Kurashima and Mitani were playing Go on the second floor after lunch. All of them were familiar faces from the Literary Go Club where I played as equals, but soon Mr. Murakado Shofu arrived—without showing his face to the shogi match—and went upstairs to start playing Go, also against me on equal terms, before Kurashima-kun quietly came over,

“Mr. Murakado’s here.” “Want to play Go?”

Kimura Meijin's four-hour-and-thirteen-minute great deliberation. Even the recorder had grown bored and left, leaving me utterly alone. Yet I was not bored. I was dying to see where their moves would differ from the thirty-eight-move game, which of them would make it, and how the two would appear in that moment. There must be something. No matter how much boredom I must stake, I want to witness that something.

However, this four-hour-and-thirteen-minute great deliberation—the outcome was apparently predetermined. 5-6 pawn push. Since it was already predetermined, they had read ahead through every possible variation; if they had intended a prolonged battle, they would not have considered it here—so it was said. Kyosu 5-dan and Doi Hachidan had also explained it that way.

“It won’t change for a while yet. Hmm... 1-1 bishop promotes. This might be where it changes. Because there’s a knight, drop to 2-4. There’s such a move, I suppose. There are all sorts of tricky aspects here.”

Doi Hachidan was the picture of satisfaction. “They’re layering research upon research here.” “Without confidence after a losing match, you wouldn’t replay the same shogi moves.” “Where’ll it shift? It’ll shift any moment now.” “Fascinating.”

Doi Hachidan was a rare type of man. He had none of a gambler's prickly pride, showed no reserve around strangers, and spoke frankly with anyone. He was a genial old man.

Outside the Kimura Meijin school, likely every high-ranking shogi player had secretly been hoping for the Meijin’s defeat. For professional players who privately harbored their own confidence, it must have been galling that legendary evaluations—titles like “the absolutely undefeated Meijin” or “11th-dan strength”—were so recklessly believed by us amateurs, the unwashed masses. “The Meijin and high-ranking players—there’s no difference in their actual strength.” “It’s research.” “It’s research that wins.”

Doi Hachidan tossed out his remark, but—

“We old folks are no good. "The young ones are really putting in the research.” Tsukada Hachidan’s profound research and the confidence with which he had embarked upon this unprecedented 38-move losing game during the crucial Meijin match appeared so reliably impressive that one couldn’t help but be struck by it. The Mainichi Shimbun had put out a live bulletin with commentary by Kato Hachidan, but with this four-hour-and-thirteen-minute deliberation, the commentary couldn’t keep up; they stretched it out for an hour and a half but ran out of things to say, and urgent telegrams demanding more material were coming in to the reporters in charge—but this was impossible. Even the recorder went out for a walk; both players neither moved nor spoke.

Even so, Kimura Meijin shifted his posture with measured composure. His left hand planted firmly forward against the board, his right hand holding a cigarette aloft at head height like a beckoning cat figurine.

This time he placed his left hand behind him, leaned into it, and exhaled cigarette smoke while staring into empty space. He raised both knees, pressed them down with both hands, and puffed away at the cigarette clamped in his mouth. Then he sat up straight again—stiffly upright—stretched his waist, slipped his left hand into his sleeve and pressed it against his hip, strained his elbow, while raising the cigarette high in his right hand and glaring at the board. He gazed at the garden, yawned, cleared his throat, suddenly swayed unsteadily to his feet, and gazed blankly out at the garden.

Tsukada Hachidan remained nearly motionless. He had both hands resting on his knees and was gazing down at the board. There was no particular intensity in his demeanor, but his eyes—tired and dull—shone with a dim light, bleary and half-closed. “How long have I been deliberating?” The Meijin asked that. Wearily putting a cigarette in his mouth, he looked at the recorder with clouded eyes. “Three hours and thirty-three minutes.” The Meijin stood to go to the bathroom, returned, wiped his face with a towel, and pressed his hand over his mouth. He drank tea and placed the teacup on his lap. He raised his knees, wrapped both hands around them to hold them down, clamped a cigarette between his lips, and puffed away. He sat up straight again, inserted his left hand into his sleeve, pressed it against his hip and strained tightly, straightened his upper body and arched his chest,

“How long have I been deliberating?” “252 minutes.” At that moment, he wasn’t looking at the recorder’s face but gazing vacantly at the space above his head,

“Ah…” He made a tongue-clicking sound in his mouth and promptly moved a piece. Pawn-56.

The four hours and thirteen minutes came to an end. Tsukada Hachidan immediately moved the same pawn. At that moment, Kimura Meijin—

“Even if I think…” He muttered something, but it could not be made out. And then—8-8 bishop promotion, same-square silver, 3-3 bishop, 2-1 rook promotion, 8-8 bishop promotion—a clattering flurry like the frenzy of gathering dried laundry before an evening downpour. He picked up the Meijin’s teacup and took a sip,

“How long did you spend considering that move?” “253 minutes.” “A total of 273 minutes.” “Guh…” Tsukada Hachidan pressed his right hand against the tatami, left hand resting on his knee, stared at the board for six minutes, then snatched up a piece—7-7 bishop. After placing it, he groaned, cleared his throat, and resumed staring at the board in the same posture as before moving. He continued to stare, no matter how much time passed. He still wore a frown as though it were his own turn, seemingly unable to stop fretting over the effectiveness of his last move—but then suddenly vacantly averted his face, stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray to extinguish its smoke, and cleared his throat with a gruff “Hrm, hrm.” At that moment, the eyes he briefly raised were filled with intense resolve.

Tsukada Hachidan let out a breath and stretched his back. It was then that his posture wavered for the first time. Kimura Meijin had been sitting upright with his chest thrust out and arms crossed, a cigarette clamped in his mouth as he stared fixedly at the board—but then he uncrossed his arms; his hand floated out softly and moved the 8-9 horse. Without a moment’s delay came 1-1 bishop promotion followed by 5-7 knight. Having finished placing his piece, Kimura Meijin looked at the garden. Then—clicking his tongue with sharp tsk tsk sounds—he swept his gaze around various parts of the room. Those eyes were swollen Moro-like eyes.

Tsukada Hachidan deliberated for ten minutes and moved his left gold to 5-8. Immediately 5-6 rook, 6-8 knight; three minutes deliberated before 4-9 knight promoted, king captured; 5-8 rook promoted, king captured; 6-2 king.

In that familiar evening downpour with laundry frantically flapping—my long-held focus on where the critical move would shift—the move had indeed shifted, yet I remained none the wiser. I wasn’t watching the pieces; I was watching the players’ faces, judging by their expressions—but there was nothing dramatic, just that frantic flapping in a headlong rush, and it was all over. After 5-6 rook came the 27th move—it had changed with 6-8 knight. Since I don’t understand shogi, I had no choice but to watch with the curiosity of a sideshow spectator, wondering where the critical shift would occur. According to Kato Hachito’s commentary, the 6-8 knight was a standard move—one that had always existed—and Tsukada Hachidan’s thirty-eighth move had apparently been too disastrous. Since I didn’t know any of that, I just kept plunging into it half in jest, trying to guess where the critical shift would come—odds and evens—and ended up making a fool of myself.

Tsukada Hachidan's long deliberation began. Exactly thirty minutes had passed when Kimura Meijin addressed the recorder:

“Did you go to sumo?”

“Huh?” “You went to sumo.”

“No.”

There, it broke off.

The Meijin set his knees upright, circled his hands around to embrace them, and sat with his mouth agape. This time, from the recorder,

“Sensei, how is Kenri of sumo doing?” “Kenri? “No, something like Kenri—” After a moment, “I wouldn’t go even if there were something like Kenri.” “Chiyoyama and the strong ones are taking a break.”

He then sat back up properly and was gripping a cigarette when he suddenly muttered to himself—

“Well… can’t be helped.”

His mutter couldn’t be clearly made out. He then sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and kept a cigarette clamped between his lips before rising to visit the restroom. When he returned, from the corridor—

“Could you go get me some Nurumayu?” “Huh?” “Nu-ru-ma-yu.” “Just a bit.”

He said in a loud voice. And he moved to the adjacent room.

He took the medicine. And then came the recess. 6:00 p.m. sharp.

Everyone stood up.

When Kurashima-kun and I casually returned to the match room, there was a person lying alone in the corner. He lay stretched out on his back, eyes closed, hands clasped over his forehead. It was Tsukada Hachidan.

“Not feeling well?” “I’ve got medicine.”

When Kurashima-kun began to speak, he sat up,

“No, I don’t need any medicine.”

Staggering, muttering something, he walked off to the dining hall.

“What kind of medicine are you talking about?” I asked.

“No, it’s your medicine.” “It’s pitiful, you see.” “I thought about giving him that to drink.” What I called “my medicine” was hiropon. That morning, after arriving at Monami exhausted and taking my medicine to collapse on the reception room sofa, he came saying he’d stayed up all night and couldn’t possibly hold out today, so I made him take my hiropon. He hadn’t known this drug. Since the effect was immediate, he must have thought to make Tsukada Hachidan take it too.

“It’s pitiful,” Kurashima-kun had said, but both shogi players were utterly exhausted. But in the shogi world, hiropon appeared to be completely unknown. Their exhaustion was heart-rending to behold—precisely when hiropon would serve its greatest purpose—and I considered instructing them about it. But Tsukada Hachidan had a frail constitution, and I feared it would bode ill if his life were shortened by hiropon solely due to my suggestion. So I abandoned the idea.

When night fell, a newsreel crew had gathered to await the match’s conclusion, but these men kept injecting hiropon.

★ After dinner, night fell, and the garden beyond the glass doors became pitch black, leaving nothing visible. A tension as though the universe had been compressed into this single room stretched taut, filling every corner. Kimura Meijin sat upright in silent meditation, but when he took out a Metabolin tablet from his pocket, Tsukada Hachidan—who had been deliberating continuously since before dinner—pushed his 5-3 Pawn (68 minutes). The Meijin merely glanced, took his Metabolin, and rose to go to the restroom—but turned back in the corridor, lit a cigarette from the brazier’s flame, and departed. Tsukada Hachidan also stood up and left. The Meijin returned, glared at the board for about a minute, and

7-2 King. He pressed down on the king piece with a single index finger and smoothly slid it sideways. Holding both hands over the brazier, he twisted his face to stare at the board. Tsukada Hachidan began his deliberation. “Please inform Osetuma for me, will you?” Having said this to the recorder, Kimura Meijin stood up.

When I peered into the reception room, he had settled into an armchair in the back, holding up a cigarette in his right hand, sitting with eyes closed in that beckoning-cat pose of his, deep in thought. When I peeked in again five minutes later, he was no longer holding a cigarette. His hands hung limply, his eyes were shut tight, and he lay stretched out. His face showed no trace of being deep in thought. Immense exhaustion. He appeared as the very image of immense suffering. Ten minutes later, I peered in again. Exactly the same posture—only his mouth hung slackly open.

While listening to Kato Hachidan’s commentary in the dining hall, Kurashima-kun came in and tapped my shoulder, “Hey, this is brutal.” “The Meijin’s collapsed in the reception room.” “Ah, I know.” “Can’t stand watching this.”

Tsukada Hachidan deliberated for ninety-six minutes—5-5 Knight—this was reportedly a novel move.

This time, after the Meijin had been deliberating for about ten minutes, “Meijin, you have two hours and fifty minutes remaining.” The Meijin faintly grunted in response. It was nine forty. Both shogi players looked as though they were drunk, their faces faintly flushed, eyes glazed, foreheads creased, brows furrowed, skin glistening with a greasy sheen. Tsukada Hachidan pressed his abdomen with his left hand as if from stomach pain, slightly bowed his head, furrowed his brows, and kept his eyes closed. The sound of a single raindrop began cutting sharply through the air. Outside, a misty rain fell.

Tsukada Hachidan stood up. His legs seemed to have gone numb. He stood up, staggering, stomping his feet, dragging himself along, and left with a moan. At that moment,

“Meijin, two and a half hours remain.” The Meijin gave no response at all. His mouth hung open. He held up a cigarette in his right hand. That hand and his gaping mouth trembled faintly. Tsukada Hachidan did not return. The Meijin’s prolonged deliberation must have laid bare Tsukada’s novel 5-5 Knight move. I wondered in my amateur’s mind whether the Meijin would exhaust his allotted time as usual and become trapped in thought. Wanting to see what Tsukada Hachidan was doing, I went to check the restroom but found it empty. He wasn’t in the reception room or dining hall either. On the sofa lay a sewn hakama.

When I was standing in the hallway, he appeared from the direction of the kitchen area while fastening his obi.

Just then, Kurashima-kun came down from the second floor and said, "Mr. Murasato is waiting—let's have a match." Assuming this meant the Meijin would be engaged in lengthy deliberation, I deemed it acceptable and ascended to the second floor.

I took black. Spectators: Kurashima-kun, Doi Hachidan. Mr. Murasato was the literary world’s foremost practitioner of title-match deliberation—the kind said to overwhelm even veterans in that continental samadhi realm of concentration. With my mind lingering on the match downstairs, my anxiety mounted as I found myself mired in ko-like struggles through sheer bad luck. A relentless barrage of poor moves left me at a crushing disadvantage. Without bothering to consider an easy resignation, I kept placing pieces haphazardly—only for Mr. Murasato to sink into deeper contemplation and make even worse moves than mine, abruptly conceding defeat on his own. I ended up winning by five points. Having declined another game, I hurried back downstairs.

The Meijin’s responding move was 5-4 Pawn (89 minutes), same Knight (37 minutes), 6-4 Gold; 3-6 Knight (12 minutes), 5-7 Pawn (24 minutes), same King (21 minutes).

It had progressed this far. Total: 183 minutes. In an amateurish Go match, such a long duration shouldn’t exist. That Murasato Daijin had devised this entirely on his own was terrifying. In other words, I had missed the crux of this match—the decisive moment. The Meijin’s 5-4 Pawn in response to the novel 5-5 Knight—this was said to be the decisive blunder. At that moment, when the Meijin collapsed and dropped his piece, someone immediately muttered, “The 5-4 Pawn was wrong—should’ve played 6-4 Gold.”

When I returned to the match room, both shogi players’ complexions had grown increasingly red, their entire demeanors completely altered. They were utterly exhausted. Their vigor and spirit utterly spent, they now appeared as limp as boneless cartilage. Yet despite this, what filled the room to bursting was a lethal aura. The two shogi players sat sloppily facing each other, their knees splayed apart, radiating desperation like an electric current—yet to me, it seemed this emanated neither from their bodies nor their spirits, but rather from fate itself, an inescapable fate that had congealed and saturated the very air.

The match had already been decided. This was no mere contest. The Meijin had ceased to be the Meijin—it was as though a condemned man were walking toward the execution platform. Even so, Kimura Meijin’s demeanor shifted. With the fearsome resolve of a villain standing his ground, he suddenly concentrated force into his posture, extended his hand to seize the king piece, and slammed it down onto the 8-2 square—the sharp clack of the shogi piece rang out. He immediately lit a cigarette, glared at Tsukada Hachidan, then stood and left. Tsukada Hachidan placed his left hand on his knee, inserted his right hand into his sleeve, pressed his left arm with his pocketed hand, and leaned over the board.

Kimura Meijin returned while wiping his hands, without so much as a sidelong glance, immediately sat down, and fixed his gaze upon the board. Sitting rigidly upright, lips pressed into a thin line, murky eyes brimming with lethal intensity as he stared down the board—during this vigil, Tsukada Hachidan deliberated for five minutes and 6-6 Lance In a combative stance, he slapped it down with a sharp clack, immediately rose to his feet, and departed. This time Kimura Meijin threw his weight over the board. Not merely his face— the very roots of his neck burned crimson. Clutching a lit cigarette in his left hand—frozen in that maneki-neko pose—he glared into vacant space with jaw agape, lost in contemplation. His hands and mouth quivered faintly.

5-9 Silver (6 minutes) Kimura Meijin tapped the piece again with a clack, tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, and let out deep, guttural groans—"Ugh... ugh... ugh..." He kept the cigarette raised in his left hand. Tsukada Hachidan forcefully thrust his knees forward. 6-4 Lance (1 minute) Without a sound, he pressed down with a finger and slid it out smoothly. Same pawn. This too was without sound. The Meijin was pursing his lips tightly. Tsukada Hachidan removed his glasses and wiped them. His face grew increasingly flushed, left hand planted on his knee, right hand tucked into his sleeve to press against his left arm as he leaned forward, body swaying faintly. Five minutes. 7-5 Knight drop. He placed it with a clack, picked it up again, and tapped it sharply.

Kimura Meijin shielded his eyes with a hand and gazed—so it was said—that same hand raised in a visor, scratching his brow while glaring at the board. He muttered something unintelligible, then immediately after whispered, "It can’t..." His face flushed as though vermilion had been poured over it. “Well… can’t be helped,” he whispered faintly, tilting his head as he executed the 7-2 Silver Up move (four minutes), arched his back, thrust both arms into his sleeves to brace against his hips—elbows rigid—and glared solemnly at the board. After a moment, he glanced around at the spectators, tsked, stammered something under his breath… but only the final syllable—‘na’—reached audible clarity.

6-3 Gold (five minutes) Kimura Meijin muttered again, his words inaudible.

Twelve minutes. Same Silver. Tsukada Hachidan pondered deeply. He was blinking his eyes wearily. The Meijin grabbed the area around his mouth with his right hand, then tugged at it. Gradually moving downward, he pinched his chin. Pinched his ears, scratched his ears. He glared at the board while pulling at his eyebrows. He finally clasped his hands on his knees, then lifted the teacup to drink, spilled it, let out a small “Ah,” and stared at the spill. He lit a cigarette, put it in his mouth, placed his hands on his knees, and puffed out smoke. At this moment, it was 1:05 a.m. on the 7th. The Meijin discarded his cigarette, let out a massive yawn, thrust his left hand behind him, and collapsed back limply.

Tsukada Hachidan also sat cross-legged. He puffed his cigarette with a soft sound and wiped. After deliberating for twenty-seven minutes, he moved the same Dragon Horse. The Meijin immediately dropped 7-2 Gold. At the same time muttered, "Well... can't be helped"—only that was audible.

Tsukada Hachidan moved 5-2 Pawn (1 minute). Kimura Meijin crossed his arms, muttered “Hmm…,” and sat there with his mouth hanging open. Tsukada Hachidan took a towel, vigorously scrubbed under his nose, glanced at me, and headed to the restroom. Then Kimura Meijin leaned over the board,

“I’ve really gone and done something terrible... shōbu?” he muttered, but the words—“koto... shōbu?”—remained largely inaudible. He removed his glasses, pressed a towel to his face, and held it against his eyes. He wiped his neck. Tsukada Hachidan returned from the restroom, and from this moment onward, a resolute expression became clearly etched upon his face. And as if surrendering to whatever might come, he crossed his arms and twisted his body. Kimura Meijin yawned. He took the towel again, wiped his face and hands, let out an “Ah,” then muttered something under his breath. The boy brought hot coffee, but he took up the ice-cold tea instead, drank it, groaned, and picked up the cigarette box—but it was empty,

“Any cigarettes?” Kurashima-kun handed over the cigarettes. “Meijin, thirty minutes remain.”

He nodded faintly.

"Mmm..." he muttered something—the rest couldn't be made out. He sat up straight. He muttered again. “Meijin, twenty minutes remain.” He faintly responded, “Mm.” He muttered something. It was inaudible. He muttered something again. It couldn’t be made out. He seemed to say, “Kachiganeeka.” Tsukada Hachidan groaned repeatedly—unh... unh... He also groaned—unh... unh...—in a strained, abdominal manner. His posture remained proper.

Kimura Meijin took twenty-eight minutes for 6-3 Gold; without conceding this one either, he groaned—unh... unh...—straining from his abdomen. 6-1 Tokin.

“...Gaa...sukoni...neeka...”

Kimura Meijin leaned over the board and muttered while thinking. Again, something—a single word. Again, something. He crossed his arms. 3-5 Bishop. He tapped the piece twice. Then immediately, 4-6 Pawn—this too he tapped twice. “Meijin, ten minutes remain.”

“Mm.”

And then,

“However long it takes.”

He had probably muttered something like that. I was seated closest to Meijin, yet even I couldn't make out a single one of those murmured words. He pressed his right hand to his face. He pressed it to his forehead and rubbed. It seemed Meijin remained unaware that he was already collapsing—that he kept muttering—that none of this registered within himself. "Well... this way or that?"

And then—7-9 Dragon Horse. And he pressed his chin. Tsukada Hachidan strained, leaned over the board observing his own formation, then surveyed the enemy camp before clattering through his moves in one continuous motion. 3-2 Dragon Horse, same Silver; 8-3 Promoted Knight, same King; 8-4 Silver. At the same moment, Meijin’s body swayed unsteadily and tilted to the right. His body swayed limply as if made only of boneless cartilage, “That’s it…” Limply, he grabbed the piece and let it scatter. As if even a second of silence were agony, he immediately continued speaking,

"The 5-4 Pawn was wrong. Should have dropped the Gold here." “Where?” “Here. “6-4.”

The Meijin’s voice—having thrown the piece with “That’s it…”—likely didn’t reach those seated slightly farther away. The creaking sound of a body collapsing limply—a faint noise that itself seemed to sag limply. At that moment, 2:24. He should have moved here like this—this was wrong—if he’d moved like this and they’d come at him like that—then this—the Meijin chattered nonstop. Where was that voice coming from? It was a voice like brittle rice paper. Hoarse, strained, parched, gritty—not a sound emerging from beyond the throat. A voice manufactured on the spot around his throat—he must have needed to keep chattering nonstop. Even though his voice never broke, at times his face would suddenly take on the expression of someone unable to abandon their despair. Uncertain how to respond, his body naturally crumbled limply, collapsed inward and withered away—yet he seemed to be suppressing it somehow.

Since it was a review of the moves he had made, Tsukada Hachidan had no choice but to engage with each fragment of this chatter. At times his eyes would flash sharply as he stared at Meijin—"Well then, like this... at that time, like this"—fixing his gaze unwaveringly, yet not even the faintest shadow of triumphant joy surfaced in his heart. When I later remarked over drinks with everyone how agonizing it had been to watch this match, Tsukada—now crowned Meijin—jerked his head up and retorted: “On the contrary—among all Meijin title bouts, none have ever been less thrilling than today’s.”

As a shogi match, that was probably true. In other words, from past the halfway point, the outcome had become clear, leaving no room for reversal. By around midnight, the dice of fate had already been cast, leaving no possibility for human intervention to alter it. Thus there was nothing thrilling about it—when Kimura Meijin threw down his piece at that moment, he likely had no need to freshly recognize his own defeat. However, for me, it wasn’t about the movement of the shogi pieces themselves. As for that—watching it unfold—I never understood it in the first place. The champion—undefeated for ten years, said to be nearly invincible—had fallen from his position as champion. That dice had become nearly immovable from halfway through the match; with the demon gripping his collar, Meijin desperately tried to regain his composure—this was no longer a contest against Tsukada Hachidan, but a fallen champion’s struggle against the demon of fate, a futile battle he could never win, too gruesome to witness. I found it more agonizing than witnessing the death of a close relative.

The newsreel crew that had been lying in wait all night immediately commenced filming. A chaotic, upended commotion. Meijin seemed not to notice any of this—his face twitching, his voice strained—as he kept moving the pieces. Twenty minutes later, at 2:45, a manufactured kind of smile—artificial though it was—managed to surface on Meijin’s face for the first time.

I had had enough. I went to find Mr.Muramatsu.

“Let’s play a game.” “Ah, let’s do it.”

We went up to the second floor.

★ The newspaper company's whiskey and Doi Hachidan's prized 20-proof sake—a drink meant to be cut with one part water—by dawn, after some liquor had made its rounds, left both the former and new Meijin with flushed faces, while Kimura Meijin had recovered some semblance of his ordinary bearing.

I was indeed weaker than the Meijin. “Even though I was weak, I ended up winning—so I just felt dazed, no sense of happiness rising up at all,” said New Meijin Tsukada. When a strong player gets cornered, the psychological burden becomes immense and profound; thus it’s the strong who self-destruct—that inclination must have been present in this Meijin match. One couldn’t say Kimura Meijin was weak. To me, however, the Meijin’s defeat appeared only natural.

The Meijin said. “It’s fate,” he added. “It’s the times,” he said. “The current of the times was moving toward denying all authority—I had sensed that era,” he said.

“I am Shōō.” “That Shōō who created laws himself and was condemned to death by those very laws—I created the rules and was defeated by them. With an allotted time of eight hours, I couldn’t possibly have played.” “Because I read through to the end.” “I was defeated by time.” “That’s Shōō for you.”

“Shōō.” “I’m uneducated, you see.” “Tell me how to write it.” “What characters do you write it with?” Kurashima Takejiro pressed on bluntly. “The ‘shō’ from ‘commerce’.” “The ō... well, the ō is a troublesome character—perhaps the heart radical?” “What, are you writing it as ‘Shō-Ō’?” “You created it yourself and were done in by it yourself—in other words, Monsieur Guillotin, I suppose.”

However, I thought that the cause of Kimura Meijin’s defeat lay solely in his having matured into adulthood and lost the fighting spirit that a true competitor stakes upon their matches. That was a “losing disposition”. While fighting spirit is the womb of technical progress, in Kimura Meijin’s case, it was not so much that it had declined as that he had matured into adulthood—and that was far more dire. Kimura Meijin suffered three consecutive defeats against Shōda Hachidan. It was apparently a grueling match without even a moment’s rest from his arduous travels, but when Kurashima-kun asked, “Why push yourself to fight in such poor condition?”—

“No, you see—it’s my principle to fight by placing myself in poor condition and my opponent in good condition.” “I unconditionally accept whatever conditions my opponent desires and play.” “I don’t set any conditions from my side—I grant all my opponent’s wishes, fight under those terms, and believe it must be done that way.” In what was likely the sixth game of the Meijin match, having himself avoided a perpetual check, he was defeated due to overexertion. He lost by sacrificing himself.

That fighting spirit and grandeur—the Meijin’s magnanimity, his fair play. That was a lie. A match isn’t such a thing. If perpetual check is absolute, then it must be perpetual check—for that meant being faithful to the match, faithful to shogi, and thus faithful to my life, my way of living. For the Meijin, shogi should not have been a mere pastime—was it not the path into which he had poured his very life, staking his entire existence? It becomes art precisely because one perpetually plays at the match’s razor edge, making moves that admit no retreat—absolute moves. Literature is no different—when one merely manipulates hollow characters to tidy up surfaces or panders to the zeitgeist without true conviction, it cannot become art.

If perpetual check should be absolute, then the Meijin—who avoided it—was not merely failing at fair play; he had been unfaithful and insincere to shogi itself, which is to say, he possessed a character fated for defeat. In his prime when Kimura Meijin overflowed with vigor, he once assessed Futabayama thus: "In shogi, losing the opening means losing the match." "Since securing position in the opening constitutes the very technique required of a Meijin Yokozuna," he had declared, "I cannot comprehend responding to an opponent's provocations." This very mindset the Meijin himself had already lost, instead transforming into Futabayama's brand of folly.

From its very inception, the sumo yokozuna stood as Japan’s most quintessential peculiar specter—a single bizarre ghost that, once elevated to that station, could not be brought low even by defeat—and it was precisely in this act of instituting such formalized authority that the Japanese miscalculation had lain.

The current shogi Meijin match represents competition’s truest path—where the Meijin, that solitary champion, must forever stand alone: challenged, and when defeated, compelled to fall. Authority must ever spring solely from true skill alone. A Meijin of mere presence—that is to say, within yokozuna’s realm—may wield authority bereft of true skill, preserving position through dignified bearing alone. Thus do people (we Japanese) place faith in presence over ability—declaring greatness where presence resides. Japanese politics stands thus—politicians stand thus. Even literature succumbs likewise. Though politics should hold policy paramount with presence rendered irrelevant, what Japan deems politics resembles techniques for steering public sentiment—compromising with foes, deal-brokering, consolidating outcomes through such maneuvers—while demoting policy itself, its execution, and its animating convictions to afterthoughts.

Just as shogi players devote themselves to shogi, politicians should devote themselves to their policies; yet by avoiding perpetual checks—sacrificing the sincerity of devotion to their path—skillfully compromising with opponents to force cramped resolutions, then calling this statesmanship, dignity, politics... we call these the phantoms of Japan. Japanese military personnel did not understand the true nature of war; they failed to grasp that victory comes through weapons—that the might of weapons defines the might of war. Soldiers wasted most days drilling to barked orders of "About face! Forward march!", leaving no time to master rifle marksmanship, never once contemplating atomic bombs. From the war's very outset, they fixated not on victory but on where to artfully negotiate peace—relying solely on such maneuvers.

All of Japan’s wretched ideological stagnation must perish alongside this war’s defeat—otherwise, a new Japan cannot come into being. To negate authority meant this: eradicating at their root the myriad Japanese phantoms that had led the nation astray. Kimura Meijin was not undone by his decade-long invincibility as an authority figure, but rather because he had grown insincere toward shogi itself—maintaining his status through a dignified presence divorced from the game’s essence, transforming into a hollow authority—thus embodying a disposition fated for defeat. Just as Japan, which had relied on spiritual resolve and divine winds (kamikaze), met ruin, so too was the Meijin vanquished, declaring it his ordained fate. Utterly absurd. That was why he possessed a losing nature.

If one devotes themselves to shogi and offers their heart and soul to its techniques, they naturally transform into demons of competition; politicians become demons of policy execution—each should fall along their respective paths. There exists no place for such things as grandeur of presence. Shogi demands that one becomes a Meijin solely through shogi's own techniques.

It was, as the Meijin said, the era. Yes—an era when what must perish perishes. Form perishes so that substance alone—by virtue of its very essence—may be rightly appraised. For a new, authentic Japan to be born. Substance alone constitutes everything.